Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1887-12-09
Won,nn,. New Home.

WOmnn's New Home.
Woman having gradually become free by
means of the slow evolution of the truth
she began long ago to create the dwelling
house and carry 1t from barn like simplici
ty over 10 an amazing variety. As early
as in the baronial times woman began to
touch the house OF man as if bv the hand
Of magic. But it is within this century
her influence has been most powerful. The
egotism of man will be slow to confess the
fact but, upon reflection, we all know
that woman, when she came into the pow
er Of education, began to make that new
presence felt. Unable To preach, She had
the stairs made wider not permitted to
vote, she invented window shades and cur
tains turned away from the practice of
the law, she asked for handsome china and
for IA clean, beautiful table cloth not util-
lied in Congress, she had more time for
studying carpets and wall ll-puper not ex-
pected at the tilts of billiards and baseball,
She made the whole world write and sing
the sentiment that there is no place like
home Educated and having her river of
thought damned up in many directions,
her force flowed toward house building with
the more momentum.
The modern ideal home is just as much
an intellectual and emotional work as an
L
thoughts such also is a dwelling house,
and the woman who has in some degree
fashioned it is as much an intellectual ere
ator as is the masculine toier whom we
call an essayist or poet or dramatist While,
therefore. the new home of our age is the
result of the great and free woman, it is
also the cause and has made woman the
pOssessor of an intellectual power which
she could not claim in the cabin and tent
period The house has helped to create the
new woman.
There is a remarkable resemblance be
tween piece of literature and finished
residence Of modern times. That amplih.
cation which makes a high literature and
distinguishes it from common truth is seen
the moment YOU enter good dwelling
house. Literature is not fact but it is an
assemblage Of ornamental facts The die
tionary, the arithmetic, the chemistries and
grammars contain facts, but these books
are not literature, but when the facts come
to us with an attractive quality then are
we in the presence of literature.
When the mind of the house tenant loves
and studies the fabric il will, even when
wealth is absent, be a vast collection Of
thoughts, and will resemble closely an es
say by CASTELAR, or novel by Scott or
George Eliot. Look at the ideas We may
take a cottage far below the city house in
cost. We enter its ample grounds through
a neat gate. Had poet told us of gate
we should have praised him for his cultur-
ed perceptions. But here is the actual gate
itself We pass through walk lies he
| fore us, clean, wide. 1t has border of
flowers They need not be expensive
Marigolds, od-fashioned peoples. cluster
roses, four-o clocks, will satisfy the heart
Humming- birds dart around us flashing in
the sun, True. the housekeeper did not
make the hummng- birds neither did she
make the flowers but the same taste that
| planted the bloom by the walk drew thith
er the flashing Of the little green wings.
| Perfume mingles with sight and sound
| We climb the front steps aud pause in a
| pOrticO. where there are some plain seats
/ There is purple clematis plying its fres-
/ co-art upon one of the columns Within
the dwelling onward moves the procession
of ornamental thoughts The useful is
made TO bear its delicate load of the beaut-
/ full. The furniture, the floor the ceiling
the walls all synpathize with each other
like the four parts of music. There is no
monotOny, no sameness, but harmony as
of soprano with alto and tenor and bass
How the ideas multiply before us The
fireplace is not stingy, but generous. 1t
has perhaps a row of tiles to ornament the
/ black place of the smoke and the fire The
mantel is as graceful as the reredos behind
AN altar. A few ornaments are on the
shelf-not expensive, perhaps, because
] 9O-cent gracefulness is the same as one that
costs 50 But tn enumerate the ideas in
the house would be to compose catalogue
longer than that of Homers ships.
1t would be necessary for us to pass from
curtain to bookcase, from silk here to ere
ton there, from the clock TO the teapot,
from the lamp shade wrought out of wom-
ans mind to the utility bread-board carved
by her own hand. Thus from foundation
to roof the modern home is collection of
separate thoughts recording the progress of
the human mind just as the amplihcation
| by CASTELAR, and Dante proclaims the pres
ence of literature and genius.
But while we are gazing around in hall
library and parlor there is the unmistaka-
ble sound of Il real woman coming down
| the stairs While Fneas was gazing at
the pictures and works of art in the palace
of old Carthage, while he was lost in adj
miration and was shedding not few tears
over pictures which recalled great men and
great events in the history of his new bur
led Troy there was sudden sensation in
the room.
Behold, Queen Dido was entering Thus
while we are admiring enjoying and al
most weeping over the beauty of the wom-
ans home, taken along with the reflection
that she must soon leave it forever, the
new Dido comes down the stairs. In an in
slant we perceive that not only has She made
the house, hut by way of reciprocity the
house has created her. Her dress is sim
pie, but perfect i'm color and gracefulness
Her face beams with the vivacty which
] trhf fl.a aah q.
of thought her words are the best words
in language because the effort to possess
good stairway. good fireplace, Il good
window, a good floor and a good wall has
made her heart yearn for the valuable and
permanent in speech The taste cultivated
in the one art overtiows and affects the
speech and the thought.
But onward goes this harmony for there
are a few flowers pinned on her heart her
manners are the perfection of case, be-
cause her activity has created a mental
power which lifts her above the small in
her conversation she pronounces the conso-
nants at the ends Of words, because she
has escaped that languor which asks To
have all syllables end in "a, wv, or "ah. -"
If so be that some silver hair has come, she
is proud of the dear gray, because it tells
Of a deeper friendship, Of a warmth of
heart, to which girlhood is a stranger.
That this modern house and this modern
woman have helped fashion a better man
there can he no shadow of doubt Man 5
new home, the creation of modern times,
must he ranked along with the school
house the college, the studies of the schol-
ars, the hall of the statesman and the tenn
pie of religion, as a power over the public
mind and sentiment. OF course, it is not
the whole world of woman. Woman is
larger than her house. She calls upon art
literature pursuits and benevolence to help
her express and benefit her race but the
house is a species of throne from which
there issues daily 10 the world a kind of
proclamation of peace and wisdom and vir-
tue and beauty, 1t is preceded by the
words Hear ye, hear ye. The half-civil-
lied woman of barbarous tribes and the
languid, half dead woman of the civilized
lands, will soon hear this rolling voice, and
will he aroused to some appreciation of the
truth Of her existence. .-Ddrid Siring in
The Chicago j0WrHdl
The Riches of Bolivia.
Bolivia is doubtless the richest in miner
I ais of any land on the globe and millions